Bogota Blogger

Not easy.

Colombians can visit something like 30 countries in the world without visas, and most of those are Latin American countries or obscure island ones, with a few exceptions (Israel, South Korea, Japan). Colombians can’t even visit Mexico without a visa, and Mexican visas are hard to obtain, because–my cynical theory–the US dictates to Mexico their visa policy because we don’t want any of those Colombians getting closer to our border and trying to come into our country to take what we got!

There are websites for companies who supposedly help people get visas to places like Canada or Europe, but I think many of them are not too trustsworthy and that the best way is to find out through research the policies and procedures and just do it yourself. Visas for Colombians are harder and harder to come by to first world countries, so most of those agencies can’t help so much in the end anyway. A program to study English in Canada or England is probably one of the easiest routes to a visa, but even that requires a lot of work and, honestly, a lot of cash (and a few connections).

So, I last year helped my Colombian friend Jose try to get a visa to go to England to study English. He had a friend who had a connection with a language school in London, and we started there. Then, since the school works with the British Council, all the paperwork collection and documentation was supervised by that agency. The good part was that the British Council knows what the government wants to see and tells the people working with them what to gather in order to present a case. Basically it comes down to studying fulltime (21 hours per week) for at least seven months, with the course and a month of accomodation paid for in full up front, proof of a long-standing Colombian job, ability to pay living expenses in UK, property ownership, and lots of other detailed stuff.

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I have left Bogota. But I still have a lot to say about it, and am going to try to start writing again consistently. I left because I got a new job in Turkey, so I was ready for a different experience, but I could easily have lived in Bogota for a few years more. There’s lots to do and it has many andvantages for a foreigner. I would love to spend more time in the city, and in Colombia, and in South America, but the job situation dictated that I should move, and that is what I did. I would not hesitate to go back to Bogota and/or Colombia some day to live, and I most definitely plan to return to visit (maybe next July), now that I have some connections there.

Comparing Progress in Colombia and Turkey

I see a billion similarities between Colombia and my new home, Turkey. And a lot of differences, too, but more similarities. They are both in about the same place economically and in many ways socially as well. One big difference is that Turkey hopes to get into the European Union so is likely to clean up its act at a faster pace than Colombia, but in Colombia I also see some movement. The natural resources of Colombia are just astounding, the human resources are just waiting to be tapped, and development could come very quickly with just a little effort and some reform policies that a certain minority segment of the country’s leadership seems aware of and ready to make, if possible. Turkey will get there first, but when Colombia finally starts to compete, it will have a lot of raw talent to back it up.

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The disparity between the rich and the poor here is startling to me–I knew it existed, and I know it exists in many places, but living with it on a daily basis is a whole different thing. The Colombian economy, however, is said to be booming, and by all the macro-economic standards, I imagine it is. I wonder about individuals, though, and how quickly and how much life (economically) is improving for the 95% of people here who are not rich.

I’ve felt since I first came here that, if the rich were willing to allow a middle class to develop, life for them would also improve dramatically. Lots of the rich here are very well-educated, and I’m sure they can theoretically understand that as well, but on the practical level, they’re not willing to give up their dirt-cheap servants and ability to earn money in a system that gives them every advantage. Opportunity here is minimal, to my way of thinking, though I’m sure it’s a much better situation than might be found in lots of other parts of the world, including most of Africa and Asia. (I recently spent ten days at a conference with a friend who’s living in Pakistan, and his stories put mine to shame.) Still, though things may be improving, the Colombian economy is open to very few–education and hard work don’t very often lead to success as they would in a G-8 kind of world. I know personally a couple of engineers and economists who can’t find work of any kind.

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Well, for two weeks I haven’t written, because I was in the United States at a conference and didn’t have much time, and on fotos. I got back two days ago and yesterday went to a flower farm owned by the family of a friend of mine, so that’s going to be my next post.

I’m also leaving again in eary July, but will take time to write when I’m back in the US for summer, because this time it’s vacation, not work.

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I have lived in Bogota for two years, and am now going to begin putting down random thoughts and impressions about random things regarding the city and the country, my experiences and ideas about everything from potholes to politics.  The arrangement will be arbitrary, as things pop into my head, and if some sort of organization presents itself eventually, that can’t hurt–but, no promises.

Also, just for everybody’s information, this blog is nothing more than Life As I See It here in Bogota and Colombia. I’ll be writing my impressions, of course, and things I’ve learned or heard from all sorts of sources, and I can’t claim anything about how reliable the information is. Basically, I’m saying the things I’ve seen and heard, and  I hope they’re interesting and possibly helpful, but I can’t say anything for certain about how entirely reliable the info is.